COMMISSION DRAFT OF THE PROGRAMME.

which strata of small producers, for example, petty peasants 
and artisans). 
All these persons are compelled by their economic 
position c o n s t a n t l y  o r  p e r i o d i c a l l y  to sell 
their labour-power, i.e., to enter into service as wage-workers to the owners 
of the means of production and circulation of commodities and by their labour 
to create income for the latter.

4. 
The dominance of capitalist relations of production expands more and more 
as the constant improvement of technique, by increasing the economic signifi
cance of large-scale enterprises, displaces small independent producers, that is, 
causes a relative decrease in their numbers, converts part of them into prole
tarians, narrows the role of the rest in socio-economic life, and in some places 
places them in a more or l e s s  complete, more or l e s s  obvious, more 
or l e s s  grave dependence upon large entrepreneurs.

5. 
By converting part of the small independent producers into proletarians, 
the same improvement of technique leads to an even greater increase in the 
supply of labour-power, giving entrepreneurs the possibility to apply women's 
and children's labour on an ever l a r g e r  scale in the process of production 
and circulation of commodities. 
And since, on the other hand, that same process 
of improvement of technique (machinery) leads to a relative d e c r e a s e  in 
the entrepreneurs' need for living labour of workers, the demand for labour-power 
necessarily falls behind its supply, as a consequence of which the dependence 
of wage labour upon capital increases and the level of its exploitation by capital 
rises. The share of the working class in the total sum of social income created 
by its labour c o n s t a n t l y  d i m i n i s h e s.

6. 
Such a state of affairs within bourgeois so-...*) 
Overproduction, causing more or less acute industrial crises, which are followed 
by more or less prolonged periods of industrial stagnation, is an inevitable conse
quence of the growth of productive forces in the absence of planning, which char
acterizes commodity production and the capitalist relations of production inherent 
in present-day society. 
Crises and periods of industrial stagnation, in turn, make 
the situation of small independent producers still more difficult, lead still more rapidly 

*) Apparently Martov made an omission here during the copying. 
—Ed.

LENIN MISCELLANY.

to a r e l a t i v e, and in some localities even an a b s o l u t e  worsening 
of the situation of proletarians.

7. 
Thus the improvement of technique, signifying an increase in labour pro
ductivity and a growth of social wealth, conditions in bourgeois society an increase 
in social inequality, an increase in the distance between the propertied and the 
propertyless, a growth of insecurity of existence, unemployment, and all manner 
of destitution.

8. 
But as all these contradictions inherent in the capitalist mode of production 
grow and develop, there also grows the discontent of the labouring and exploited 
masses with the existing order of things and intensifies the struggle of their van
guard representative—the proletariat—against the defenders of this order. 
At the 
same time the improvement of technique, by socializing the labour process within 
the workshop and concentrating production, with ever increasing rapidity creates 
the possibility of that social revolution which constitutes the ultimate aim of all 
the activity of international Social-Democracy as the conscious exponent of the class 
movement of the proletariat.

9. 
This social revolution will consist in the elimination of capitalist relations 
of production and their replacement by socialist relations, that is, in the expropria
tion of the exploiters for the transfer of the means of production and circulation 
of products into social ownership and in the planned organization of the social 
productive process for the satisfaction of the needs both of society as a whole and 
of its individual members. 
The realization of this aim will liberate all oppressed 
mankind, inasmuch as it will put an end to all forms of exploitation of one part 
of society by another.

10. 
In order to accomplish its social revolution, the proletariat must seize 
political power ( c l a s s  d i c t a t o r s h i p ), which will make it master of the 
situation and enable it to overcome all obstacles. 
Organizing itself for this end into 
an independent political party opposed to all bourgeois parties, the proletariat invites 
into its ranks all other strata of the population suffering from capitalist exploitation, 
relying on their support insofar as they recognize the hopelessness of their position 
in present-day society and come to the point of view of the proletariat.